japanese sweet red bean bun

• metric
• u.s.

ingredients:

• 240 g mashed sweetened red bean paste
• a little sesame seeds (optional)
• 1 egg beaten yolk
• a little bread flour

bread dough:

• 150 g bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast
• 5 g softened unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 5 g sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 100 ml lukewarm water (30°C)

step 1:

Put the bread flour in a bowl and place the dry yeast and sugar next to it on one side. Be sure to keep them separated. On the opposite side, place the butter and salt in the same manner. Pour the lukewarm water over only the dry yeast. Mix part of the moistened dry yeast with all of the sugar. Then mix all the ingredients together until the flour is no longer visible. Form into one large ball.

step 2:

Spread some bread flour over a flat surface and put the large ball of dough on it.

step 3:

Push it to the other side. Fold it in half and slap it onto the flat surface. Repeat this for about 15 minutes (about 200 times).

step 4:

Put it in a bowl and cover with some plastic wrap. Place in a warm place to ferment for 40 minutes.

step 5:

Dust a board with the little bread flour before placing the bread dough on it to prevent it from sticking. Divide the bread dough and red bean paste into 4 portions and roll each into a ball.

step 6:

Lightly crush each ball of bread dough and place a ball of red bean paste on top of each.

step 7:

Wrap the bread dough tightly around the red bean paste. Press down lightly with your hand to flatten it a little. Do the same for the remaining three.

step 8:

Space all the buns on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet. Cover with some plastic wrap and set the cookie sheet aside to ferment for 60 minutes.

step 9:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C for about 10 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap and brush the surface of the buns with the beaten egg. If you like, place sesame seeds on the top of all the buns. Bake for 15 minutes.